Lion Air To Use MRO To Attract Customers

The construction of a new and much-larger MRO facility in Batam will allow Indonesia’s Lion Air to move into third-party maintenance work, as well as catering to the carrier’s own rapid fleet growth.

When its second major MRO base is completed next year, Lion Air could potentially allocate 30% of its heavy maintenance capacity to third-party work, Lion Technic’s President Romdani Adali Adang tells Aviation Week.

However, the Indonesian company stresses that this does not mean that 30% of the capacity will always be set aside—the amount of outside work will depend on the maintenance requirements of Lion Air’s own fleet of aircraft.

Lion Technic currently performs a very limited amount of third-party work, mostly on behalf of the owners of some leased aircraft that it operates.

The new MRO facility is being built on the island of Batam, which is just south of Singapore. The first two of the planned four hangars are scheduled to open by the end of this year, and the second two by the end of June next year.

Lion Air also intends to add engine and component repair facilities by the end of 2016 or the first quarter of 2017.

The total cost is estimated at $250 million.

The new hangars will each be able to accommodate three Boeing 737s or one 747-400. This will significantly boost Lion Technic’s capacity, as its existing facility in Surabaya has only a single hangar that can accommodate two narrowbodies.

While the Batam operation will be controlled by Lion Technic, it will be branded as Batam Aero Technic. The different name will underline the increased emphasis on third-party work, the carrier says.

Romdani says that without this new facility, the carrier’s rate of aircraft deliveries would overwhelm its current MRO capacity by next year.

Lion Air has almost 550 narrowbody aircraft on order from Boeing and Airbus.